Day 26 Monday February 3

The Duck - an important landmark on the secret map to the Kiva

5000 year old rock painting of Jerry Garcia

two more from the Cave Kiva at Hueco Tanks

entrance to Cave Kiva - crawl and roll starting at S's pack

It started like any other day on the road, but after a while S drives and I hide in the way back. S drove well and even in the way back, where it is ruffer than the front because of the dual wheels and the stiff suspension or something, it was pretty smooth all in all and I stayed and played with the phone until we began to enter El Paso. From the nearer back it looked like a megacity on Mars, a city state. Has its own army. Fort Bliss goes on forever and has enough stuff to take over say another city state like Houston or New Orleans. Every thing is tan. But it is the freeway system that most impressed me in the near back - incised images in muted reds and browns, sweeping entangled interchanges, 12 lanes each way all new, all finished, no stains, no trash.

Actually it all started with the free breakfast at the Hampton. But that was not so hot but the staff was friendly as were the three cops. The highlight was ending up at the Hueco Tanks State Park out east of El Paso 30 miles. Have to sort of apply to get into this place and have an indoctrination in a private room at the old ranch house, and get a card to carry with you at all times, and shut the gate to the campground behind you and finally turn in your drivers license to get a secret map of the route to the Cave Kiva. And that’s okay. We eventually found our way to the Kiva and crawled in with 5 or 6 20 year old rock climbers and it was all close encounters with ancient red and yellow rock paintings that were done 5000 years ago by some Jornada Mogollon tribesman but looked like Banksy. The wind again, the lentils again, the G&T’s.